The Burlington, Mass.-based firm's new WANSyncHA platform adds high availability features, including application-aware automatic failover on a global scale, even across multiple IP networks.

The ability to transfer journal activity to remote servers over wide area networks (WANs) is "quite a difficult problem, and no one has solved it until now," XOsoft founder and CEO Leonid Shtilman told Enterprise Storage Forum.

XOsoft also has plans for a new version of its Data Rewinder continuous replication tool that will integrate with other vendors' backup and snapshot solutions, along with a new product for managing data protection across multiple platforms.

"Companies solely targeting continuous data protection may find it tough to survive, because users — most of whom already have substantial investments in backup, snapshot, and replication software — aren't prepared to rip out what they have and start all over again," says John Abbott, storage and systems analyst for the451. "So XOsoft's move to integrate with existing snapshot technologies used on major storage system platforms seems like the right thing to do. There's no work for the system vendors to do; XOsoft says it will do the work from vendor APIs."

WANSyncHA provides application-aware automatic failover over LANs or WANs. It maintains identical replicas of complete database and application servers through continuous real-time replication. If a server fails or must be shut down for maintenance, a synchronized replica, whether in the same office or around the globe, will automatically take its place.

"Having backups or standby replicas on hand is simply not enough for organizations with continuous streams of mission-critical data," says Data Mobility Group analyst Dianne McAdam. "XOsoft has taken a unique approach with WANSyncHA in allowing applications to transfer operations to standby replicas automatically while providing organizations with seamless service availability."

With that level of availability, it's not surprising to find that organizations like Intel, Merrill Lynch, and the Federal Reserve are XOsoft customers.

ERP solutions provider PdMAIN Corp. was an early WANSyncHA customer.

PdMAIN CEO Gerhard Fiedler maintains it took just minutes to get a test system up and running. "We were ... impressed with WANSyncHA's fast and simple installation," Fiedler says. "No reboots or application shutdowns are required, and transparency is also apparent during operation." Those features reduce TCO by saving on IT support costs, he adds.

The new WANSync platform includes a number of application-aware solutions for industry-standard database and application servers. WANSyncHA Server provides global availability for application servers of any type, while WANSyncHA Exchange, WANSyncHA SQL, and WANSyncHA Oracle deliver high availability for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle servers, respectively.

WANSyncHA is currently available, with pricing starting at $4,500-$6,000 per server.